This disclosure relates generally to presenting content in an online system, and more specifically to pacing of a budget by a user for presenting sponsored content to other users via an online system.
Online systems, such as social networking systems, allow users to connect to and to communicate with other users of the online system. Users may create profiles on an online system that are tied to their identities and include information about the users, such as interests and demographic information. The users may be individuals or entities such as corporations or charities. Online systems allow users to easily communicate and to share content with other online system users by providing content to an online system for presentation to other users. Content provided to an online system by a user may be declarative information provided by a user, status updates, check-ins to locations, images, photographs, videos, text data, or any other information a user wishes to share with additional users of the online system. An online system may also generate content for presentation to a user, such as content describing actions taken by other users on the online system.
Additionally, many online systems commonly allow users (e.g., businesses) to sponsor presentation of content on an online system to gain public attention for a user's products or services or to persuade other users to take an action regarding the user's products or services. Content for which the online system receives compensation in exchange for presenting to users is referred to as “sponsored content.” Many online systems receive compensation from a user for presenting online system users with certain types of sponsored content provided by the user. Frequently, online systems charge a user for each presentation of sponsored content to an online system user or for each interaction with sponsored content by an online system user. For example, an online system receives compensation from an entity each time a content item provided by the user is displayed to another user on the online system or each time another user is presented with a content item on the online system and interacts with the content item (e.g., selects a link included in the content item), or each time another user performs another action after being presented with the content item (e.g., visits a physical location associated with the user who provided the content item).
When providing sponsored content items to an online system for presentation to users of the online system, a user may associate one or more conversion events (also referred to as “conversions”) with the sponsored content items. A conversion associated with a sponsored content item specifies an action performed by a user presented with the sponsored content item. Hence, a conversion associated with a sponsored content item specifies a desired action for users presented with the sponsored content item to perform. For example, a user providing a sponsored content item to an online system associates a conversion of accessing a landing page identified by the sponsored content item. In various embodiments, the sponsored content item includes a tracking mechanism including instructions that are executed by a client device presenting the sponsored content item when a user performs the conversion associated with the sponsored content item.
However, conventional online systems are unable to reliably determine likelihoods of users performing many conversions associated with a sponsored content item. For example, a conventional online system determines a likelihood of a user accessing a sponsored content item but is unable to determine a likelihood of the user accessing a landing page or other content associated with the sponsored content item. Accordingly, many users providing sponsored content items to a user specify amounts of compensation to the online system if users presented with the sponsored content item access the sponsored content item. However, selecting sponsored content items based on user interaction with the sponsored content items may not present sponsored content items to users who are likely to perform specific conversions associated with the sponsored content items.